The roar, of blades behind her; The banking plane up-tossed; The swerve that sought to blind her; Masked faces, glimpsed and lost; The joy-stick wrenched to guide her; The swift and saving zoom, What time the shape beside her Went spinning to its doom. No angel-wings might follow Where, poised behind the fray, We spied our Lord Apollo Stoop down to mark his prey-- The hidden counter-forces; The guns upon the road; The tethered transport-horses, Stampeding, as we showed-- Dun hawks of death, loud-roaring-- A moment to their eyes: And slew; and passed far-soaring; And dwindled up the skies. But e’en Apollo’s pinions Had faltered where we ran, Low through his veiled dominions, To lead the charging van! The tree-tops slathered under; The Red-Steel Killers knew, Hard overhead, the thunder And backwash of her screw; The blurred clouds raced above her; The blurred fields streaked below, Where waited, crouched to cover, The foremost of our foe; Banking, we saw his furrows Leap at us, open wide: Hell-raked the man-packed burrows; And crashed--and crashing, died. It heard the song of the Dead in Air, as It huddled against the gate; And once again the Eye peered down--red-rimmed with scorn and hate For the shameless soul of the nameless one who had neither foe nor mate. And Eye was shut. But Nakéd Truth bent down to mock the Thing:-- “Thou hast heard the Song of the Red-edged Steel, and the Song of the Crashing Wing: Shall the word of a black-coat priest avail at Valhalla’s harvesting? Shalt _thou_ pass free to the Seven Halls--whose life in shame was sped?” And Truth was dumb. But the brooding word still echoed overhead, As roaring down the void outburst the last loud song of the dead. _THE SONG OF THE GUNNER-DEAD_ _In Thor’s own red Valhalla, Which priest may not unbar; But only Nakéd Truth and Eye, Last arbiters of War; Feast, by stark right of courage, The Killers from Afar._ We put no trust in heaven, We had no fear of hell; But lined, and ranged, and timed to clock, Our barrage-curtains fell, When guns gave tongue and breech-blocks swung And palms rammed home the shell. The Red-Steel ranks edged forward, And vanished in our smoke; Back from his churning craters, The Gray Man reeled and broke; While, fast as sweat could lay and set, Our rocking muzzles spoke. We blew him from the village; We chased him through the wood: Till, tiny on the crest-line Where once his trenches stood, We watched the wag of sending flag That told our work was good: